


Stomach Butterflies

by gargie



Series: Suburbia [1]
Category: N/A - Fandom
Genre: Angst and Romance, Awkward Romance, Black Character(s), Boys Kissing, Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Coming Out, Eventual Romance, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Gay Male Character, Gay Panic, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, I'm Bad At Summaries, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Korean Characters, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Male Slash, Minor Character Death, Mixed Characters, Near Death Experiences, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Pansexual Character, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Plot Twists, Relationship(s), Romance, Sibling Bonding, Smoking, Suicide Attempt, Underage Smoking, mixed race characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-11-23 00:29:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20883185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gargie/pseuds/gargie
Summary: one town, two boys, three subtle confessions, four poorly executed text messages and a shit-ton of stomach butterflies





	1. Issa

**Author's Note:**

> == currently cross-uploading on wattpad == 
> 
> warning: themes of underage smoking & suggested abusive/toxic relationship
> 
> in which ki steps in to save the day  
first ever chapter uploaded onto ao3! hope you enjoy it!

Marcel left the boys bathroom zipping up his pants. Issa left the boys bathroom wishing he had a strong mint flavored mouthwash. 

'What an ass. I don't owe him shit.' He thinks, checking his shirt in the camera on his phone, retying his striped school tie and running his fingers through his hair. Niles was a top-end all-boys school, but that didn't mean the boys studying in it were as respectable as the school's reputation. The school halls were a mess in the morning, boys left-and-right greeting each other with whoops and name-calling. Bags were all over the floor (lockers were tiny, there wasn't enough space to put excess weight in them) and wrappers of early-morning corner shop buys were scattered on the floor. 

"Oi oi!" Tao hollers at Issa from their block of lockers. Issa laughs at the Chinese-Spanish boy.  
"Morning, Tao," Issa gets out his keys and unlocks his locker, "I see you're in a good mood for once."  
"I'm trying to pretend I don't have Double English with Ms Piget," Tao leans against the locker, "He sniffs the air and wrinkles his nose at the smell of cheap cologne, "She's a right b*tch, y'know. Gives us sheets upon sheets of homework. I'm not exaggerating."  
"I had her in Year Seven." Issa pulls his P.E Kit out and slams his locker shut, "You're not wrong about her being the prositute of Satan herself." 

"Damn, the adventures we could have had if I'd moved here from Florida a year earlier." Tao looks up to the ceiling dreamily, "Could have written a whole biography from the lot of experiences we could have had in that class."  
"A biography needs a name," Issa digs his hand into his pocket and pulls out a lighter, "Any ideas?"  
"The amazing, talented Tao Corazon-Huang and his irrelevant best friend who needs tweezers to wank off coz his dick's so small," He opens up his pocket blazer to reveal a pack of cigarettes and nods towards the door to outside.  
"Oh ha ha." Issa follows Tao out towards the edge of the school campus, behind some bushes. Tao lights up his cigarrete and holds the lighter out to Issa. They breath in the smoke and exhale deeply. 

"My dad found my stash over the weekend. Good thing I had a back-up stash in the shed, eh?" Tao blows out a stream fo smoke in Issa's face and he fans it away.  
"Oi, don't blow it into my face." Issa laughs, puffing his own smoke into the air, then coughs into his sleeve.  
"So how's things with Marcel, eh?" Tao rests his cigarette in-between his two fingers, closing his eyes, "You two still together?"  
"Err, I suppose so." Issa scratches the back of his neck awkwardly, "Not really sure now, though."  
"If he's getting uninterested, you should try and shag him." Tao kicks a stub of a stone with his shoe, "Sure, the whole school might find out, but that always happens eventually with any secret in this place." 

"I'm not..." Issa hesitates at the sound of a notification on his phone, "I'm not doing that with Marcel. He acts like a chav whenever we're alone."  
"A'ight, but I'm just saying," Tao throws his cigarette onto the ground and stubs it out, Issa following in suit, "Anything goes in this area."  
"Tao, you really are a bad influence," The two walk back into the school as the school bell rings, "Got me into smoking, had me purchase a fake ID and now this? Aren't you Asian people supposed to be uptight and completely clean?" 

Tao stops walking at a split in the corridoor, "Not all of us. Ciao," He waves and heads down his fork of the corridoor. Issa goes har har har until Tao disappears into a form room before heading to his own classroom. 

// 

P.E is sh*t. Issa had come to that conclusion the minute he'd put one one of the stupid kits that came with the subject. Niles' uniform was worse than his primary school's. Sky blue and white stripes on a crew neck t-shirt, shorts that just about reach his knees and a pair of socks that shrunk in the wash. His trainers are chunky tennis shoes he thrifted from a charity shop, a stark contrast from the rest of his class with multi-colored Nikes and the sort. 

Hockey was also sh*t, but it wasn't as unbearable when you were paired up with someone. It was however, unbearable if your partner was someone with the name Marcel Rossi. Issa would rather chew off his own foot.  
"Y'know, if you weren't such a prude you'd be much more interesting to make out with," Marcel leans against the wire fence of the multi-use court, hockey stick spinning around in his hand.  
"I'm not a prude," Issa is actually putting effot into the lesson, walking backwards and forward as he shoots the hockey puck over and over again into the net, "You're just an ass."  
"Come on, don't be like that," Marcel walks forward and blocks Issa's shot with his stick, "You know you like to snog me."  
"No, I do not," Issa wacks Marcel's stick away and shoots the puck into the net with a tut, "I saw you over the weekend. You lied. You're still with Heather." 

"You know you're more important to me," Marcel leans forward as if to kiss Issa but he smacks the Italian away.  
"Lies. You really f*cked up in the bathroom this morning. I'm not comfortable with doing anything like that and you're aware of that," Issa perks up at the sound of a whistle signifying the end of the lesson, "I told you in the bathroom and I'm going to tell you again now: I don't want to be with you anymore." 

Marcel blocks the single exit from the court, "You're lying. You like me. You love me."  
"F*ck off, Marcel!" Issa attempts to shove Marcel away, but his attacker grabs his arm instead.  
"You smell like cigarretes and cheap cologne." Marcel squeezes Issa's arms and bends down to kiss him, but a loud bang on the wire fenced door behind him stops him in his tracks.  
"Is everything alright here?" A voice says behind Marcel, who steps aside to look at the person behind the wire door.  
"God, it's one of you Asian punks again." Marcel lets go of Issa and turns around to open up the door, "Fuck off, will you? It's none of your fucking business." 

"It turned into my fucking business when you two argued so loudly practically everyone in the class could hear you." And he's right. In the two neighbouring courts everyone has stopped packing up to look at the them.  
"Fine. Apologies for being loud. Now go away." Marcel shuts the door and the wiring in the court shakes.  
"We're going back in anyways. The lesson is over. You need to get out of there." 

Issa lets out a quiet sigh of relief and carefully walks past Marcel out of the court. He speed walks down the path towards the school building, not regarding a thought for Marcel, still standing on his own in the court. 

"Are you okay?" It's the Asian boy again, with a face of concern looking at Issa.  
"Yeah, I'm..." Issa hesitates, "I'm fine. We were just discussing some... personal things, going on between us." 

"Oh, okay." He nods and drops back a little. 

"Thanks for doing that. You really didn't need to bother youself by interfering...uh...." Issa struggles to name the boy, "I'm really sorry, but I can't recall your name? Are you new here?"  
"Oh, it's fine if you don't," He smiles awkwardly as they head into the changing rooms, "Some people in my form still can't remember my name since I transferred from a different school in Year Eight. I moved down from a higher set yesterday since I got a low score in the fitness test. I'm not exactly the most athletic person in the year group." He laughs quietly, scratching the back of his neck. 

Issa just stares and nods, until the taller boy stutters out an answer to the former question.  
"I'm Ki," Ki holds out his hand and Issa just stares at it for a second before tentatively shacking it for barely a second, "Weon-kee, really, but that makes me sound like a real foreigner."  
Iss shakes his hand, "Isiah. Call me Issa. Isiah sounds real chav." 

"Nice to meet you, Issa." 

"Nice to meet you too, Ki." 

And that was it. That was the start of everything. The start of two-and-a-half years of both heaven and hell, face cradling and face slaps, tears of joy and pain. 

Two-and-a-half years of nothing but stomach butterflies.


	2. Ki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> == currently cross-uploading on wattpad ==  
tw: n/a
> 
> in which ki panics over bread  
and issa offers him a hand (of money)
> 
> introducing: misumi (ki's sister) and hayoung (ki's mother)

It had been a month and a half since Ki had seen Issa.

That was a lie. He'd seen his face in the halls, waiting in the cafeteria queue or during their weekly P.E lesson, but they'd never actually properly talked. And in the rare chance they did have a moment of peace to themselves: their interactions were limited to Issa grinning at Ki as if they were the best of friends, which would result in Ki smiling back and hastily looking away. He didn't need a new person coming in to complicate his life. He figured as long as they never talked again, he'd do fine.

He was wrong, as what would be proved that fateful day.

Ki hates working the counter in the café. To him, it was like having Satan shove a flaming hellish dildo up his ass. Not a good feeling. The building was just as ugly, white paint chipping off the outside bricks, 90s wallpaper decorating the walls. Did it at least seem a little homely, yes, but the mix of foldable plastic tables and the odd chipped glass coffee tables covered by plastic christmas themed table covers made Ki want to rip his eyes out. Nothing had changed since they'd moved into the rented two-floor building at the corner of Sherrywater's money-drained highstreet. Sun-bleached flags of South Korea and Great Britain hung from the cobwebbed windows. Thumbed, yellowing books that Ki and Misumi had, ahem, borrowed from their school libraries sat collecting dust on a shelf which displayed family photographs, primary school pottery and other miscolored Bric-à-brac.

It was a Sunday, the day had already been dragged out by an almost two-hour long mass that morning, and felt sour from how incredibly boring this, his eighteenth birthday, felt. Sure, his mother had booked them a table at a local korean bbq to celebrate with a few family friends, but that was it. Not that he didn't know he was still more fortunate to even have his family just barely be able afford a one-hour slot at a bbq buffet, but it felt so underwhelming in comparison to his friend Liam's. His family had gone all out, organised a two hour laser tag session as well as renting out the church hall to party in all through the night, complete with smoke machines, a dj, laser lights. Nevertheless, Ki was thankful for whatever his mother and sister put into the day.

"What's this for?"

"These shoes? They're for me, of course. I decided to splurge out on these men size 13 nikes," Misumi smirked, "I'm just kidding. It's a present, happy birthday brother (오빠 ),"

"Oh, you remembered," Ki takes the pair of shoes into his hands and examines them. He's been wanting these for months.

"Of course I did, it's just over a week from the best day of the year other than my birthday: Halloween."

"I know you're too shy to ask mom (엄마) for money. How'd you get enough cash to buy these?"

"Well, I'm a hardcore drug dealer. I go around the hood at night and supply the good kush," Misumi rubs her fingers together to signify money and snorts with her words.

"Oh good, you can start contributing to the rent," Hayoung, their mother, calls out from the back of the café, busy paying their piling bills.

"Lah! No!" Misumi complains, earning her a smile from Ki, "I didn't mean it like that!"

"Sure you didn't," Ki mutters, followed by a wack on the shoulder by Misumi.

"Oi! You're cheeky this afternoon, aren't you? Get changed out your pyjamas, maybe it will make you act like an actual mature adult for once." Misumi slinks off into the kitchen to do who knows what. 

Ki lets out a sigh, too lazy to go up the stairs to their upstairs two bedroom apartment, "No-ones come in for the past three days. I'll be fine just staying in my pjamas."

That was a mistake. He heard warm laughter drift throught the door and he lazely trailed his eyes towards the direction of the noise. A duo of customers came in, the sight of which made Ki want to hurl himself off a very, very high cliff.

It was Issa. And a mixed Asian looking kid. But Ki's focus was mostly on Issa. All Ki was wearing was a faded, oversized Seoul souvenir t-shirt and paint-covered sweatpants. Sweatpants. And Issa was looking like he'd walked straight out of pintrest, dressed casually but not to lazily and smartly but not smart-looking enough to look geeky. His dark, curly locs fell over his face, constantly being swept up by Issa's long, slender fingers. His forehead was covered in a light sheen of sweat due to the early Autumn heat, but there was a warm smile stretched across his face as he spoke to his companion in a calm, almost soothing voice.

Ki ran his hands through his hair furiously and tries to rub the dark circles under his eyes away as the two approach the counter.

"Oh, hi Ki."

"Hi, Issa."

Good confident start. He starts reccomending some items as his mother taught him, but Issa clearly has a hard time reading, constantly rubbing his thumb over the corner of clear tape laminated menu. 

"Can I have the...err," He hesitates with his pronounciation,"Guyr-"

"Gyeran Bbang?" Ki smiles at his efforts and Issa nods in acknowledgement, 

"Alright, Misi!" Ki calls out the the back and Misumi sticks her head around the corner to listen to Ki's onslaught of Korean that clearly confuses both Issa and Tao back front. 

"How much is it ?" Tao's getting out his wallet, "I'll pay for it."

"A roll of Gyeran Bbang is £2," Ki nods, 

"Well it's my lucky day then, coz I have just £2 in my wallet." 

"Wait, you're not having anything?" Issa looks towards Tao.

"It's okay, I don't have enough money for it," Tao faces Ki, "I'd like a receipt please?"

"No-no! I'm the one who ordered it," Issa's pushing Tao's hand away from the counter, "I'll pay, I'll pay. You get something for yourself" 

"I insist."

"I insist too."

"No, really. Don't bother yourself with paying. I was the one reccomended us to visit this place, so I may as well be the one paying." 

"Tao, you paid last time we ate out. Remember that Filipino ice cream parlor place in Chinatown? You paid then, let me repay the fav-"

"You can get another roll free," Ki blurts out. 

Sh*t. 

Sh*t. 

Sh*t. 

Why'd he do that? It was definitely not free. His mom would kill him. If he let them go without paying they'd just lost what could have been their income for the entire week-

"Wait, what?" Tao raises his eyebrow, confused, "You sure it's...free?" 

"Buy a Ggyeran get any bread roll free," Ki blurts out the fake offer, immediately wanting to slap himself. The Rhee's were already on the brink of debt, Hayoung barely had enough to pay for their small upstairs flat and the cafe rent. But of course, of f*cking course, anxiety had to run through his veins and force the kindness out of his heart. 

"Oh, cool!" Tao's eyes gleam as he buys a pineapple bread and redbean bun, two of the most expensive bread rolls on the list. Ki remembered the bell tower in the church and imagines jumping off in his mind. F*ck. His mom had certainly heard him giving away free food. He'd have to deal with the consequences later. 

"One pineapple bread and one redbean bun coming right up," Ki said through gritted teeth. 

// 

"What is it with you and giving out free food?" Misumi leans against the glass display cabinet as Ki slumps down in a stool to try out his new trainers, "You know how mom reacted last time you did that." 

"Yes-yes." Ki sighs, kicking his feet up against the wall to tie the laces, "I know. Just don't bring it up with eomma, okay?" 

"He's just over there, still eating with his mate, y'know!" Misumi speaks in a hushed voice, "Just go over and explain you got the offer wrong and Tawn or whatever his name is needs to pay up." 

"No! I am not doing that," Ki stands up and walks around with the trainers on, trying them on for size, "That'll make me seem like a real..." He looks around for Hayoung, "Asshole."

"Fine then. If you won't do it then I will. What's his name?" Misumi stands up straight and dusts herself off in preperation, 

"Issa," Ki rolls his eyes at Misumi, "His name is Issa-"

"Yes?" 

Ki turns around to look at Issa standing there with ten quid in his hand. Misumi looks at Ki, nagging him telepathically to ask for payment,

"N-Nothing," Ki shuffles closer to the counter to hide at least his sweatpants, "Do you need any assistance?" 

"No, no, I'm good," Issa smiles, "Just...err... take this. In case you didn't know, we could hear you from our table. Sorry if we guilt-tripped you into giving us food for free." 

Across the room, Tao is silently yelling at Issa's back. 

"Oh...err...I mean-" Ki hesitates to take the money so Issa leaves the £10 note on the counter and after a minute or so, packs up and leaves with Tao in tow.

"See you around, Ki." Issa flashes a smile, 

"Yup, have a nice rest of your weekend," Is Ki's reply. 

He watched Issa leave with Tao, until they disappear out of the frame of the cafe's streaked window. The sound of the bell rings to a silence. 

"Y'know, I think he payed extra. So we just profitted, by accident," Misumi clicks her tongue and finger guns, "Good going, Weon-kee." 

"Yeah," Ki nods, presses his lips together and slowly inserts the bank note into the cash machine with a resounding 'ca-ching', "Good going."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thoughts on misumi and hayoung, albeit they were only shown for a short while?  
do you guys like long chapter updates or short chapter updates?  
will g ever get a consistent upload schedule? 
> 
> also... ki's birthday is october 23rd, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY BBY! <3


End file.
